Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Untitled Pee Essay by "Mr. Teacher"

Nine months a year, Monday through Friday, I am in charge of seventy-six people’s pee. Usually I’m only in charge of my own pee, but for the past few years I’ve been teaching high school and have thus become the supervisor of pubescent bladders. I never imagined that people would seek clearance from me to urinate, and I definitely never imagined that I would scrutinize those requests and deliver judgments, but here I am. It turns out that a liberal arts degree qualifies me to be the one who sorts out who gets to pee, so it might be useful to provide a description of how I make my determinations:

1. A girl with a panicked or telling look on her face who asks to go to the bathroom gets to go; there might be menstruation afoot. However, when a girl brings up menstruation in an attempt to shock me, I respond directly and fearlessly and with eye contact. I do not fear teenage girls.

2. Anyone who asks in a bored way does not get to go. That kid just wants to go walk around.

3. A student who looks to be sincerely uncomfortable gets an exasperated sigh, a look at the ceiling, a full second of eye contact, and a “Fine. Go.” But you can’t make it easy for them.

I brag to them about how I’ve never left class to pee in my 6½ years of teaching, and I emphasize how they have to plan ahead and make use of their opportunities to pee between classes. This, of course, makes me a dick, but if you let them pee willy-nilly then the floodgates open and all hell breaks loose. At this rate, I’m on track to become the asshole principal from “The Breakfast Club” within ten years.

2 comments:

Kathryn said...

terrorizing teenagers with eye contact. brilliant. i wish i had a teenager to try this on right now.

Megan said...

haha, that's great. pee IS endlessly fascinating.